Summary of US Mobile Market Q4 2022
As expected, 2022 ended up being the best in US mobile market history. The quarter and the year broke a series of records for net-adds and revenue. Net-adds again crossed 10M in a quarter. The year saw a whopping increase of 25% in net new subscriber additions. On the revenue front, US became the first country to cross the $200B/year milestone. T-Mobile and AT&T were particularly prolific in setting new records.
T-Mobile maintained its position as the number one operator in the world by valuation.
AT&T again added more connections than any other operator in the US mobile industry history breaking the 25M milestone for the year primarily on the back of its strong Connected Devices program which celebrated its own milestone by breaching the 100M mark last quarter. T-Mobile continued to dominate the valuable postpaid phone segment.
T-Mobile again added more broadband customers than rest of the major players combined. After going in red, Comcast and Charter had positive growth in the Internet segment though the mobile operators grew 11 times in the quarter. For the first time in its history, Comcast lost (net) broadband customers.
On the mobile front, the cable companies had their best quarter with Comcast passing the 5M sub mark (Charter is close behind) in 5 years. Charter passed Comcast in quarterly revenue for the first time. The convergence battle will play out well into 2023.
There was consequential movement in adjacent areas as we had predicted – fixed wireless, MEC, private networks, and new applications and services. T-Mobile is using its spectrum advantage to go after the low-hanging fruit of fixed wireless in certain markets while Verizon made investments in the MEC and private networks space. AT&T also continues to invest in the enterprise segment.
US picked up pace on the 5G front and kept its lead with China in percentage penetration. In 2022, US has also outpaced China in 5G revenue by a significant margin. So, the “5G race” is in the eye of beholder, depending on the dimension of comparison, you can find a different winner.
Topics covered in the research update.
- Q4 2022 US Mobile Market Highlights
- 2022: The Most Remarkable Year in US Mobile Industry History
- 2022: The Year of T-Mobile
- 2023: Where do we go from here?
- Tug of War: Broadband vs. Mobile
- Opex: The Silent Killer
- 5G and 4th Wave
- US wireless market competition in 2023
- US wireless market: Tier-2 Competition
- Signs of 5G Impact on ARPU, Revenues, and Price Wars
- Building Metaverse Ready Networks
- Private Networks Opportunity
- Global 5G Race Update
- What to Expect in the Coming Months?
- US Wireless Market Q4 2022 Analysis
- Service Revenues
- ARPU
- Subscribers
- Competition
- 5G Progress
- Fixed Wireless Progress
- 4th Wave Progress
- Connected Devices
- Handsets
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